detainee photos issue, because I was just reading Greenwald and learned about an amendment that boggles my mind:

It was one thing when President Obama reversed himself last month by announcing that he would appeal the Second Circuit's ruling that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) compelled disclosure of various photographs of detainee abuse sought by the ACLU. Agree or disagree with Obama's decision, at least the basic legal framework of transparency was being respected, since Obama's actions amounted to nothing more than a request that the Supreme Court review whether the mandates of FOIA actually required disclosure in this case. But now -- obviously anticipating that the Government is likely to lose in court again (.pdf) -- Obama wants Congress to change FOIA by retroactively narrowing its disclosure requirements, prevent a legal ruling by the courts, and vest himself with brand new secrecy powers under the law which, just as a factual matter, not even George Bush sought for himself.

The White House is actively supporting a new bill jointly sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman -- called The Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009 -- that literally has no purpose other than to allow the government to suppress any "photograph taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States." As long as the Defense Secretary certifies -- with no review possible -- that disclosure would "endanger" American citizens or our troops, then the photographs can be suppressed even if FOIA requires disclosure. The certification lasts 3 years and can be renewed indefinitely. The Senate passed the bill as an amendment last week.

The Senate passed this amendment. Passed it.

Now we're just making retroactive laws to prevent anyone in power from being held accountable for potentially illegal acts. It's the New Way.

On May 21, 2009, the Senate by unanimous consent adopted the Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009 as an amendment to the Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2009 (H.R. 2346). 155 Cong. Rec. S5798-S5799 (daily ed.) (Amendment 1157). That same day, the Senate passed the Supplemental Appropriations Act. The House of Representatives previously had passed H.R. 2346 on May 14, 2009 without a similar provision regarding detainee photos. 155 Cong. Rec. H5632. The Senate has requested a conference with the House to reconcile the differences in the two versions of the bill. 155 Cong. Rec. S5804. It is expected that the conference will take place after the House returns from its current recess on June 2, 2009.

The Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act as passed by the Senate provides that a "covered record" shall not be subject to mandatory disclosure under FOIA, and it defines "covered record" to mean "any record" that is a "photograph that was taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States" and "for which a certification by the Secretary of Defense under subsection (c) [of the Act] is in effect." 155 Cong. Rec. S5799 (Subsection (b)(1), (d)). Subsection (c) provides that the Secretary of Defense "shall certify" a covered record if the Secretary, "in consultation with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, determines that the disclosure of that photograph would endanger" a United States citizen or members of the Armed Forces or employees of the United States government deployed outside the United States. Ibid.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has given the federal government, at its request, an added 30 days to file a possible appeal seeking to prevent the disclosure of more than four dozen U.S. Army photos that are said to show severe abuse by American soldiers of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. Without the Ginsburg order, a petition would have been due June 9. The order, issued Friday in Defense Department v. American Civil Liberties Union (08A1068) and made public Monday, extended that deadline to July 9.

Senate Armed Services Committee tomorrow. Spencer Ackerman claims that Levin is trying to push him through as quickly as possible. Our fine young punk Spencer's probably right. Five of McChrystal's soldiers had to be punished for their torturing. I can't help but feel that some of these photos are about them. None of McChrystal's soldiers were punished unless "they got caught". Somehow five got caught and we don't know how they got caught. Hell, we know just about nothing about them or their journey into torture or their journey of being brought to justice even.

of the 30-day extension in the S.Ct. is to allow the DOJ to avoid losing their appeal on the photos case by getting their lapdogs in Congress to change the law retroactively in their favor. I wish I could do that when I'm losing an appeal.

Saying a bill Lieberman and Graham author is 'bipartisan' is laughable.

I need to find the voting list on this one. Definitely a deal breaker for me on any future support. As Greenwald says much better than I:

What kind of a country passes a law that has no purpose other than to empower its leader to suppress evidence of the torture it inflicted on people? Read the language of the bill; it doesn't even hide the fact that its only objective is to empower the President to conceal evidence of war crimes.

my prized female Roo Roo came into season let's see, it must have been about 65 days ago. Othello snuck out once. I swear I got him before anything could have happened cept.....about a week ago my husband said that Roo Roo looked pregnant. Nah! I thought she was getting a bit breasty because she is five now, she's just aging a bit I told him. We went out for breakfast. Came home, I had her in the house because she has been moody around the other dogs lately. She is also a very clean dog. I'm toodling around the kitchen though and she was laying there and then I hear a tiny mew. Look closer and one little puppy curled up with her too. Damned dog Othello......lie down with dogs and you get more dogs. This puppy will be lucky if she isn't the most spoiled dog in history though. When we have babies we are used to having at least eight.

kdog, the recieved wisdom at this site is that unlike selfless, dedicated, career public servants like HRC, Obama, McCain etc, Nader is little better than an unstable, dishonest, megalomaniac who's every utterance is motivated by the urge for self-aggrandizement. So anything HE says must be taken with a grain of salt. The Party (and the major donors), have spoken.

I agree with about 80% of his take on things. The thing I do think he could work on is his delivering and selling of the solutions. There is an art to making such things palatable to the masses and he stands for BIG changes. He's terrific at defining a lot of our problems but he isn't romantic about how we get to solutions. I don't need romantic politicians but it seems like most everybody else in the voting booth does.

below. Truly, if Obama doesn't pull his head out of his yoohoo and the majority of Americans are suffering to the degree that is projected with no reforms and a zombie financial industry......Nader could become a candidate being heavily looked at by the masses. That's ummmmm how the status quo gets its butt kicked.

And Romney wasn't THAT crazy when all the rest of them were drooling on themselves was he? Did he support any of the insanity that got us here? Deregulation? Big business and CEOs with giant bonuses from hell?

Romney would have been the nominee this time except the 'pugs a)knew they were going to lose, and b)it seemed like a good time to run McCain. They owed him for the disgusting treatment he got in 2000, because he dared challenge the golden Bush child, so they didn't want to waste a potentially good candidate like Romney. This maneuever got him in the race and introduced him to the bulk of the party, it let it get some of his "warts" out (like the family trip where he left the dog on the roof) and let the evangelicals whine about his Mormonism, which I can guarantee, they won't give 2 hoots about in 2012.

I'm a conspiracy theorist, but I think he's an attractive candidate for them. He's photogenic with a nice looking family, he's run businesses and a state, the SLC Olympics, he understands the auto industry (if we have an American auto industry left by then), his father was governor of Michigan - a swing state in any election year, and he doesn't look like McCain or some of the real crazies in their party. He can play both sides of the religion fence - on one hand he can say to his base, "Hey, I may not be an evangelical, but I'm still one of you conservatives," - and on the other hand, he can say to the masses, "Hey, I'm not an evangelical - they voted me into office in Massachusetts." And with the comparison to Sarah Palin (or rather, the caricature made of her by so called liberal and "open minded" people), he will look good.

conspiracy theory to chew on: the GOP deliberately threw the '08 election, they picked McCain because they knew he couldn't win. They wanted the economic crisis and the bail outs to happen on the Democrat's watch. It will be the most effective weapon against the Dems in 2012.

Oh, Obama and the entire party will also face justifiable charges of pathological hypocrisy for reversing their position on the war(s) and numerous egregious Bush era policies.

In order to improve his conservative "bonafides" he became very anti-choice, anti-immigration, anti-gay during the campaign.

He most definitely suported de-regulation and all the republican financial cr@p that has been spewing the last few years.

And since Obama has been president he has gone running around talking about what a Socialist he is and how he is endangering the U.S. national security by being less Bush-like, and how he needs to stop sucking up to Muslim countries. Cuz ya know, god forbid they hate us less.

The New York times reports that Max Baucus wants to scuttle the public option in the health care plan on the table now. Ted Kennedy has about 18 senators who want a robust public option something like Medicare but of course the GOP and many Blue dogs want No public plan. So guess what? Baucus proposes a compromise. No public plan now, just wait to see how well the private insurers are doing. And if they don't do well, then we will try to institute the public option. Since Medicare is going broke, it isn't likely to be in good shape in 5-6 years. So the whole argument is a dodge. On the other hand, opening the public plan up to millions of younger and healthier members will infuse the system with the money it needs to keep it viable. I guess the corporatists know this. They certainly don't want government competition shrinking their pie. I am waiting to see how hard Obama fights for this.

If he has some sort of automatic trigger that let people go the public route if there were no private insurance available at some determined 'affordable' level, I might support it. But this is seems to me kind of "let's wait and see if costs go down like Obama hopes" kicking the can down the road.

so horribly and Krugman and others discussing about the projected human suffering Americans will endure in the next 18 months followed by little to no REAL economic recovery.....2012 could be a very Naderesque year.

sometimes, from what I remember. I don't recall the scientific explanation, but the days are cloudy until mid afternoon, at least. What most people think of as California summer does not really start until July!

and glad to find another aficionado of some of the funniest writing around. At most papers, the regular "weather beat" -- not the days of massive storms and such, but the mundane daily weather -- is tossed to a lowly reporter. But I get the sense that at the Irish Times, it's a coveted beat, because the conceptual work as well as the writing is so creative. I mean, it has to be so, when the weather is always between 40 and 70, and every day has a wee bit of sun and a wee bit of "soft rain". . . .

I remember a St. Patrick's Day parade in Dublin, led off by marvelous marchers costumed as the sun, but then followed by a group that I could not understand -- a group on stilts with squirt bottles of water with which they sprayed the crowd. The Irishers roared, and one was kind enough to explain to me that the parade unit was portraying the Irish weather: a wee bit of sun, followed by a wee bit of wet, as it were.

of doing that....and BTW, why would a Democratic President want anything to do with "right to life (i.e. fetus)" an anti-choice group? (a rhetorical question) They are so far away from the Democratic platform it's amazing.

He should back away. The fact that he hasn't says a great deal, doesn't it?

During the tough primary face-off between Obama and Hillary Clinton last year, many of the Take Back America types were on his side, making up that base of Democratic progressives who wanted an end to the Iraq war. But the Obama White House isn't showing its appreciation. At the moment, Obama is riding high and may not need that base. But there are rough battles to come--health care reform and cap-and trade, for instance--and in politics, you never know when tables will turn and you'll need your friends. It would have been a wise move--and just plain menschy--for the Obama White House to have shared itself a bit more with the folks who Obama said helped him to win America.

I have an issue with the general approach of the left to Obama. Clearly this article says "we don't know you anymore" - but instead of working to make him remember us, it decries a lost love.

Uh, too bad. Stop waiting for the return of the friend and seeing the past in current promises. I really do not feel like mind reading or playing 11 dimensional chess.

"The disclosure of these photographs serves as a further reminder that abuse of prisoners in U.S.-administered detention centers was systemic," said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project. "Some of the abuse occurred because senior civilian and military officials created a culture of impunity in which abuse was tolerated, and some of the abuse was expressly authorized. It's imperative that senior officials who condoned or authorized abuse now be held accountable for their actions."

Under the new law, same-sex and opposite-sex couples can go to the secretary of state's office, sign a registry, pay a fee and secure a domestic partnership contract that essentially gives them the same legal rights and responsibilities as married couples.

Domestic partnerships, or civil unions, are not the same as same-sex marriages, which are now legal in five states. A constitutional amendment approved by Nevada voters in 2002 specifies that a marriage can be between a man and a woman only.

Domestic partners do not need to solemnize their unions under the law but are free to choose to do so if they want. Employers are not required to offer medical and other benefits to domestic partner couples but may do so if they wish.

If employers are not required to offer medical and other benefits to domestic partner couples then IMO the contract does not essentially gives them the same legal rights and responsibilities as married couples.

at this point it's more for state benefits, but they will not require private employers to do so. BUT, it seems private employers would be foolish not to at least look at the option, else lose good employees to someone else - maybe even the competition.

of retired senior citizens can benefit from the new law. David Parks, D-Las Vegas, the openly gay sponsor of SB283 said, "Our state is a haven for opposite-sex senior citizens who have retired here. Many of these folks have lost their previous spouses and often meet a second individual with whom to spend the balance of their lives, but do not wish to marry."

Well ain't that just swell! Those who don't want to get married can use this, but I still can't give my retirement package to my kids or add my partner to the deed to our house without our family having to pay taxes on my equity!

Olsen's arguments aren't any better than the arguments that GLBT advocates have been making and perfecting for decades. In fact, he and Boies will inevitably borrow from decades of GLBT advocacy. Dismissing the insight of people who do this type of work -- and who are themselves GLBT -- strikes me as arrogant and paternalistic.

"Decades of GLBT advocacy?" What the hey, let's go for centuries! What's the matter with these people, never heard of telephones? Pick up the phone and talk it over in private. No, no, let's air out our infantile tantrums in the media. After all, it's not about actually winning; it's about getting a pat on the head for all those "decades."

Olsen and Boies are superstars; they need the publicity about as much as Princess Diane, or Elvis, or Ali did. But apparently, they must be stupid; they couldn't possibly have thought this through, or discussed and debated the best strategy to take.

Obviously, President Obama isn't going to lead on this thing; you know, "I got mine, you guys are on your own. Or maybe John Kerry could take the lead. Wasn't it Kerry, who when assaulted by the Swift boat Scum, said "I'd rather go down honorably than win by playing their game.

Ruling against a government plea to keep under cover the reasons it has for continued captivity of scores of Guantanamo Bay detainees, a federal judge ruled Monday that the press and public have a constitutional right of access to many of those files -- after some delay. Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan, in a 19-page ruling, found that the government's sweeping demand to shield those documents from the public "attempts to usurp the Court's discretion to seal judicial records."

The ruling could amount to a significant victory, even if delayed, for press groups seeking access to the filings. It marked the first time that a federal judge has recognized a clear-cut constitutional right of public access to documents filed in federal habeas cases.

The decision shows that, nearly one full year after the Supreme Court's ruling in Boumediene v. Bush that Guantanamo prisoners have a right to challenge their ongoing detention, federal judges are still trying to work out the legal basis for processing those habeas cases. Judge Hogan's order applies potentially to 107 such cases, although he indicated that not all of them will be directly affected.

While watching this stuff about one or two Senators short of a full Senate, plus debates turning about the Gitmo torture photo's, all the while considering General Motors impact to bankruptcy, and flipping back and fourth though CNBC, Fox, MSNBC, and CNN the very nature of honest and truthful reporting, then a kick in the head, one realizes truth in reporting is not there. Can it be argued, all these persons brought us to this point, that any legislation is weak to non effective without a full Senate? Yes, the argument exists where this happen many times. Perhaps that is one of the reason one could say America never really had a full functional Constitution. The Constitution of Corruption, by we the lobbyist. Sheesh.

Something very curious and funny in the sense that Cheney in an Interview with that Larry Kudlow guy on CNBC "gaffed" that is Cheney said they knew all along GM was going to go into bankruptcy. One should imagine perhaps years of secret money being paid to GM for the military complex essentially funneling money into secret political blind family baby trust funds only the rich know, likely surppressed by the media and also know of and can afford and buy off to keep silent and resilient . . . Face it America General Motors make our military machines or some one has too, wouldn't it be ironic if that stuff was made in Mexico. Hell they like to fight why not just let them build the stuff. Sheesh.

The honesty of banking shows in the honesty of doing corruption in war fair business and torture. It was also interesting that Man Cow ABC radio host in the mornings at Chicago finely admits he is a diversion telecast essentially creating controversy. But on Keith Olberman goes through what appears as ten seconds of waterboarding to finally declare it as torture. Now sources calling, Olberman and Man Cow, is it a fraud telecast.

A serious consideration to toss out to the legal profession; If it can be shown that there was no effort to use very enhanced "English Interrogative" methods wouldn't it resolve this debate and extracting information. Using rhetorical skills to convince an enemy to confess even unknowingly. Hell, Rush Limbaugh and hate radio have been enlisting huge legions of unknowing Americans that follow the Limbaugh method over the cliff for decades. Yike maybe Rush was the one who thought of all this stuff. What I mean is isn't there experts in the English language that can use go interrogative rhetoric to establish a directive of truth. If America was not at a military conflict what is used then if not waterboarding to save lives?

Going back to the short fall on Senators, is showing America the skewed responsibility in the Juris Prudence for our own needs let alone the abuse and direct judicial rewriting of law on the fly. America these last few decades has revealed that we are out of control in the basics of our defense and support of the constitution by just about all congressional persons involved for a long long time. It was very funny to watch Nader argue in support of his book about his prophecies forty years ago to now blame Obama for everything in just one hundred days. He looked so out of place it is pathetic...what a fool...If anything General Motors has to keep going if America is to supply what we do best give war materials to the world. I think secretly there are whole legions of world foreign money that would snap up GM in a heart beat.

the canceling of charges against the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation? Just curious, haven't seen anything on any of the lib blogs. Talk Left certainly seems to me the most intellectually honest blog.